A former Biddeford city councilor is challenging the validity of signatures on nomination papers for former mayor and state Rep. Joanne Twomey, who is running for the state Senate District 32 seat.

David Flood, who lost the 2009 mayoral race to Twomey, filed a challenge with Secretary of State Matt Dunlap on Tuesday, asserting that seven signatures should not be counted as valid on Twomey’s nomination papers for the Democratic primary election on June 14.

An outspoken Democrat with a colorful political history, Twomey called Flood’s challenge “bogus,” but said that if Dunlap finds any of the signatures invalid, she will be out of the race against her primary opponent, Susan Deschambault.

Twomey is running to represent the Senate district that includes Biddeford, Alfred, Arundel, Dayton, Kennebunkport and Lyman. She was required to submit 200 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Kristen Muszynski, spokeswoman for the secretary of state, said these types of challenges are “not all that frequent.”

In a letter to Dunlap, Flood said three names on one petition sheet are missing a corresponding date indicating when they were signed. Another sheet is missing the town of residence of one person who signed it, he said. On another petition sheet, a resident who signed the petition is also listed as the circulator of the petition.

“My understanding is that state law says that a circulator cannot witness his own signature,” Flood wrote.

Flood said he started to question the signatures after seeing a copy of Twomey’s nomination petitions. He said he was not motivated by his loss to Twomey in 2009.

“I think everybody who runs for office should pay close attention to the petitions,” he said. “I think it should be done correctly.”

Twomey said Flood is “just trying to make my life difficult” because he supports Deschambault, her primary opponent.

“The signatures he’s questioning, once the city clerk has verified they’re registered voters, there’s no need to look at them again,” Twomey said Sunday. “I guess David doesn’t have anything better to do with his time.”

Twomey said she and her lawyer will travel to Augusta on Monday, when she’s scheduled for a 10 a.m. hearing before Dunlap. If her nomination papers are invalidated, Twomey said, it will be too late to submit more signatures and Flood will have succeeded in disenfranchising many of her longtime supporters.

“It’s not about me,” she said. “It’s about the people who have supported me for 18 years.”

Twomey, known for her outspoken defense of children and the environment, represented Biddeford in the Maine House of Representatives from 1998 to 2006. She also served two terms as Biddeford’s mayor and ran unsuccessfully for that position again in 2013. She began her career in politics by serving six years on the Biddeford City Council.

Twomey has grabbed headlines throughout her political career because of her passionate outbursts. In 1992, she was handcuffed and removed from Biddeford City Hall after being ruled out of order during a City Council meeting on the city’s now closed trash-to-energy plant, which she had opposed for many years. In 2015, she was escorted out of a town hall meeting in Saco after tossing a jar of Vaseline onto the stage where Gov. Paul LePage was speaking. She said she did so to protest LePage’s budget proposal and crude comments he had made about a state senator.

Republican Stephen Martin is also running for the Senate District 32 seat, but he doesn’t have a primary challenger.

Deschambault and Martin are facing off in a special election Tuesday to represent the district until November. The seat was vacated by David Dutremble, who stepped down in January to focus on his family and his battle with alcohol addiction.

Dunlap is expected to rule on the validity of Flood’s challenge within five days. An appeal of that decision could be filed in Superior Court.

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard contributed to this report.

 

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